


Just Aaron

by Augustus



Category: Aaron Carter (Musician), Backstreet Boys, Popslash
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2002-06-14
Updated: 2002-06-14
Packaged: 2018-03-09 13:58:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3252350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Augustus/pseuds/Augustus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aaron's take on the BSB relationships.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just Aaron

It's hard to remember a time when Nick was just Nick. Since I was tiny, he's been a part of the group, travelling the world and becoming a little more famous with every day. When he was around, the others were never far away, in his thoughts and conversation, if not actually by his side. And, as the years passed, I began to see things.

The guys would let their guards drop when I was around. It was as though they had convinced themselves that I didn't matter - that my age somehow excluded any understanding of the words and events that would pass while in their company. Nick was the most relaxed of all. I guess he just thought that anything I noticed wouldn't matter much anyway. After all, I was his brother and he knew very well that I worshiped the ground he walked on, even if I wasn't likely to ever admit it. It wouldn't matter whether I was slumped on the sofa beside him, or watching television in a corner of the hotel room, or not in the room at all. I was Just Aaron, and therefore nothing to worry about. Which was the way I liked it.

Because when you're Just Aaron, things tend to happen around you. You can listen to one-sided phone conversations under the cover of reading the latest teen mag. You can slip into the background and just watch the way the older guys talk to each other. Gestures and expressions that might not be apparent to the people they're directed at are amazingly easy to see when you're witnessing them from an outsider's viewpoint. And they might not think I understand, but at times it seems like everything's so much clearer to me than it is to them. 

So I'm pretty sure that I was the first person to realise that there was more to Howie's eternally single state than simply a picky nature. Because I remembered the way that he had looked at AJ back in the early days, and I had seen the men leaving his hotel room when no one else was watching. It took me a while to work it out, because that sort of thing just wasn't discussed in our family, but the pieces all slotted together in the end. Especially when Howie stopped watching AJ and his attempts at self-destruction, and started spending time with a _new_ friend, someone who wasn't in the business at all.

When Nick took me aside to tell me about Howie and to try to describe what 'being gay' meant in twelve-year-old terms, it was hard to keep the smart-ass grin off my face. I wanted to tell him I'd known for years, but that would have blown my cover. And then maybe the guards would have gone up and there wouldn't have been anything for me to see any more. 

Like the way that Kevin was so formal and immovable when he was busy being the 'father' of the group, but became a fluttery mass of excitement and nerves around the woman who eventually became his wife. Like the way that Brian wasn't nearly so pious when it was only him and Nick (and me) in the room, when they'd giggle like schoolgirls and tell jokes dirtier than the sort of things I'd sometimes read on toilet walls. Like the way that AJ drank more when he was alone, and that the others may have _thought_ it was bad, but hadn't known it, and hadn't seen enough to overcome the denial. Like the way that Nick wasn't as emotionless as he'd have them all believe.

Nick liked to make fun of me for the way I looked up to him. Which made him something of a hypocrite, because he'd been trying to be AJ from the moment he met him. And I honestly don't think he realised. The tattoos were an expression of his individuality, the calculated slouch anything but an unconvincing imitation of AJ's own posture and movement. His similar use of accessories was purely coincidental and if he drank in AJ's words as though they were gospel, then that was merely showing interest in his friend.

Sometimes, watching the two of them in conversation, I thought that Nick would only be happy if he could climb right inside AJ's skin. And AJ could have said _anything_ and Nick would have gone along with it, nodding and so damn serious at times that he almost seemed like someone else. He wasn't like that with the other guys. He listened to Kevin when no one else could overcome his mood swings, he turned to Howie for comfort and quiet conversation and he laughed and played with Brian like the two overgrown children that they were. He never wanted to be them, though. There was never that strange obsession bubbling beneath the surface. 

What made it all the more interesting was the way AJ looked right back while Nick was busy staring at him as if he were God. He never babied Nick like the others did, perhaps because they were so close in age, but more likely just because that was the way he was. If Nick was shitty, AJ wouldn't try to talk him out of it, or pretend it wasn't happening. He'd ride the mood like a wave, quiet and watchful or brash and confronting, and always so unavoidably _there_ that after time you almost stopped noticing that he was around. Like he was Nick's guard dog or something, and feeding off the emotions that Nick was so damn sure he didn't have.

When AJ went into rehab, Nick just seemed to sag. I guess it couldn't have been easy to admit the fallibility of the one person he'd always seemed to regard as being perfect. He'd come to rely on AJ being _there_ and all of a sudden he wasn't. And when AJ returned to the group, stronger and sober, it seemed that Nick decided that he wasn't going to be there either. He covered it with busyness, or hanging out with the other guys, but it wasn't fooling me and I doubt it fooled AJ either. Because I saw his eyes getting darker and Nick's eyes getting dimmer, and suddenly seeing things wasn't such fun any more. 

Then AJ began to make snide comments about how certain friends of his should be proud of his recent efforts. And Nick started to snarl about people only using him when they needed him to do them a favour or listen to their problems. Then silence. Neither would have admitted it, but they were, to all extents and purposes, giving each other the silent treatment.

And being Just Aaron began to really suck because I'd hear the things the others were beginning to say. Whispers of ending the whole damn phenomenon and talk of the chemistry not being there any more. I began trying to block my ears against the words and pretending that I hadn't seen the changes long before the others had. Because before it had seemed surmountable, but now there was a massive wall between two of the guys and no one was brave enough to say anything to the people concerned.

Which is where I came in. I didn't care if the Backstreet Boys continued or disbanded; what I cared about was my brother's happiness. I wasn't sure whether he needed the group for that, but I knew he needed AJ. So I decided to do something about it. 

It wasn't that hard, really, once I put my mind to it. All I had to do was invite AJ to join me in the hotel room Nick and I were sharing. I think he assumed that Nick must have been elsewhere, because he was eager enough to accept the invitation. Once he arrived, and realised that Nick was there after all, there was no way he could back out, not without looking like he was being a prick to his friend's little brother. At times, it pays to play the thirteen-year-old card.

So AJ had to come in and sit down and be perfectly civil to Nick, just like always. And Nick was civil right back at him, so polite that it was uncomfortable. Neither dared to ask me what was going on, so they just sat there and stared at each other and tried to pretend that everything was okay.

It wasn't. AJ was all quiet and apathetic, and I knew that it wasn't simply a side effect of sobriety, because I remembered the day that I first saw him after his time away, laughing in a corner with Howie and loudly stating his opinion on anything that caught his interest. And Nick tried to be sullen, then tried to be suave when sullen wasn't working, and finally settled on silent. Of course, I'm perfectly capable of holding up his end of the conversation as well as my own, but that wasn't really the point when it meant that they were still sneaking glances at each other with down-turned mouths.

I told them to grow up. Pretty harsh words coming from a teenager. Nick tried to argue the point, but he knew that I was right. AJ didn't even bother to object and I don't think it was just out of politeness to his friend's kid brother this time. I told them to look at each other and to stop being silly and to realise what they were doing to each other and to the group. I was quite proud of my little speech. Perhaps there's a career for me in public speaking if the singing thing falls through.

And they did what I told them to do. They looked at each other. I don't mean a passing glance or a simple meaning of eyes. They really _looked_.

It was like they'd forgotten I was in the room, which was far from an unfamiliar feeling. But this time, it was different somehow. Almost like I truly _had_ ceased to exist for them at that moment in time. Which sounds incredibly corny, I know, but it was something of a cliched moment. And it was funny, because despite all my watching and analysing over the years, I'd never even come _close_ to seeing this. Hard to believe, really, with it screaming at me now from less than a yard away.

They loved each other. Quite a simple conclusion once it had already been reached. And it was obvious that they could see it too. Obvious in the subtle shift of the expressions on their faces and in the twitch of surprised lips. Obvious in the way they moved, almost imperceptibly, towards each other. Obvious that I'd been interpreting things wrong all along. Because Nick hadn't imitated AJ because he wanted to be him. It was much simpler than that. Nick just wanted AJ. And AJ wanted Nick. It was no wonder that a tiny, miniscule thing had become such a major issue.

And I had a feeling that they were _both_ going to be there from that point onwards. Because now that I had seen it, it felt like it was right. Just like it was right that neither of them bothered with words when a kiss would do the job just as well. I probably shouldn't have watched, but it made me feel all warm inside, like maybe one day I'd quite like to find something similar to what Nick and AJ have had all along, just probably with a girl because I didn't think Mom could cope with _two_ gay relationships in the family. And I wasn't sure I'd want to kiss anyone for quite that long, either, because I was beginning to wonder how they were breathing in amongst the tongues and the lips and the way that they seemed to be pressing their mouths as close to each other as humanly possible.

When they paused for a moment, it was only so Nick could shoo me from the room, suddenly remembering that the engineer of the moment was still watching it unfold. He spoke seriously of how he and AJ needed to talk and tried not to look too obviously at AJ's lips. Of course, I knew as well as he did that there wasn't going to be much talking happening for a while that evening. But I wasn't about to push the issue, not when things seemed to be going so well. Instead I just smiled and nodded and left them alone to do whatever it is that friends do when they've just realised they're in love. 

And when Brian asked why I wasn't doing something with Nick, I thought that it might just be time to start telling the others about some of the things I'd been seeing. Because, let's face it, I'm not Just Aaron. I'm the guy who saved the Backstreet Boys.

**14th June 2002**


End file.
